China could soon have its first male world chess champion
Ding Liren and Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi are currently engaged in a heavyweight chess fight, with the game's biggest prize at stake. The two men sit tied in points after 13 games, with the final game looming.
Dīng Lìrén 丁立人, 30, has been going head to head against Russia’s Ian Nepomniachtchi over the past three weeks in the World Chess Championship, held by the International Federation of Chess — commonly known by its French acronym FIDE — in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan. The games are streamed on YouTube by FIDE and Chess.com, with chess grandmasters providing expert commentary, and it’s been a stirring affair.
According to championship rules, the first to reach 7.5 points wins; both grandmasters currently sit at 6.5 points after 13 games, with only one to play. The final game will happen tomorrow, April 29, at 5 p.m. China time (3 p.m. Astana time, 5 a.m. EST).
Ding is ranked No. 3 in the world, while Nepomniachtchi, playing under the neutral FIDE flag, is ranked No. 2. The championship has been a nail-biting affair. Ding consistently trailed Nepomniachtchi after Game 2, which Nepomniachtchi won to go up one point (the two drew their opening game). Games 8, 9, 10, and 11 were all draws, but then on Wednesday, in Game 12, Ding dramatically leveled the score in an error-ridden affair (the computer showed 21 inaccuracies, misses, and blunders). Near the end, Nepomniachtchi looked visibly distraught.
“It’s painful to watch this, honestly,” one of the commentators said. “I’m looking at Ian, I’m seeing that pure devastation, that anger. It gets to you.”
The most recent game, with Ding playing black, ended in the seventh draw of the championship. Commentators pointed out that Ding has a very good chance going into Game 14, as white — which goes first — maintains a small advantage, generally maintaining control. If Game 14 ends in a draw, then the players head into rapid and blitz tiebreakers, akin to a penalty shootout.
If Ding wins, he will become the first Chinese male world chess champion. (China has dominated the women’s league in the past few decades, with Jū Wénjūn 居文君 as the reigning women’s champion and Hóu Yìfán 侯逸凡 as the top ranked woman chess player.) He already has made history by becoming the first Chinese man to compete for the world title.
“Sometimes I think about becoming the first Chinese world champion as well as the 17th world champion and writing my name in history,” Ding said during the championship’s opening press conference. “If I can do that, it will be a huge glory.”
If Ding wins, he will follow in the footsteps of another Chinese champion who broke through on the world stage in a big way: In February, Lǐ Péinán 李培楠, a.k.a., Oliveira, won the StarCraft 2 world championship at IEM Katowice 2023. StarCraft, of course, has been called “real-time chess.”
UPDATE: Ding won in a tiebreaker:
Ding Liren becomes first-ever Chinese male world chess champion
